


these three remain

by WeeBeastie



Series: hope springs eternal [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Fluff and Angst, John Silver's Tragic Past, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 08:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12272253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeeBeastie/pseuds/WeeBeastie
Summary: and now these three remain:faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love[silverflint + a baby]





	these three remain

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt on Tumblr sent to me by the lovely scrapbullet! Thank you, dear. <3
> 
> Title and words in the description borrowed from 1 Corinthians 13:13, because once I realized how well it fit I couldn't not use it.

To say things have not gone quite according to plan would be a very large understatement.

Through a series of events this narrator should not like to waste time on, Flint and Silver have found themselves proprietors of a smallish inn on the coast called The Boat & Bird, living in the back rooms under a flimsy ruse of being business partners.

There are two adjoining bedrooms at the back of the inn; one sits entirely unused.

On an otherwise unremarkable rainy, dreary day a harried young woman comes to stay at their inn. She brings with her a baby girl no older than perhaps eight months, a green-eyed sweetling with soft dark curls and a dimpled smile.

She seems an easy enough baby to Silver, who never does learn her name - her mother is called Madeleine. Still, despite the baby’s sweet disposition, the mother has difficulty with her. Madeleine has a short temper and tends to yell at the babe when she fusses for too long. More and more Silver helps with her child, because he's got a way with babies (always has). He can feel Flint watching him while he dandles the girl on his knee or takes her on an educational tour of the kitchen. He doesn't know what it means, that Flint watches him so closely when he's got the baby.

One morning, Silver wakes to the sound of Madeleine’s baby wailing piteously. They've been staying at the inn for nigh on six weeks, so Silver's gotten more than used to the sound of the baby crying. He frowns, though, at how frantic and miserable she sounds - why isn't Madeleine soothing her? Surely she can hear how upset the baby is. Perhaps she needs help.

“Madeleine,” Silver calls as he gets up from the bed in just his breeches, wandering out into the hall toward the young mother’s room and pulling his nightshirt on over his head as he goes. “I can take the baby if-- oh, dear.”

He's just pushed open the (unlocked, not even fully shut) door of Madeleine’s room and found nobody but the baby. Madeleine is long gone, with all her possessions. Meanwhile her baby sits up in the blanket-lined box where she's been sleeping, red-faced and howling at the world at large. She reaches for Silver, opening and closing her hands in an obvious request. He crosses to her and scoops her up immediately, resting her on his right hip.

“Where has your mummy gone, hm?” he asks as he carries her from the chilly, barren room. “Do you suppose she's coming back?” he asks, knowing in his gut that she won't, that she's left the baby on purpose. Unwanted. Abandoned.

It feels very familiar, to Silver.

He carries the baby to his and Flint’s bedroom, sitting down on the bed with the sniffling infant in his lap.

“Nice of you to help her mother,” Flint mumbles, obviously still half-asleep. 

“Her mother left,” Silver says flatly as the baby reaches out for his hair, tangling her fat fingers in his curls. 

“When will she be back?” Flint asks, cracking one eye open and peering up at Silver. 

“I don't think she will be back at all. She took everything with her except this,” Silver says, gesturing to the baby in his lap. 

“ _What_?” Flint gasps, suddenly fully awake, sitting up in bed and staring dumbfounded at Silver. 

“She left the baby here. I don't think she's going to come back for her, James,” Silver says quietly, looking down at the little girl in his lap. She's calmed considerably and is contenting herself with pulling Silver's hair and chewing one of his fingers. 

“We have to-- do something,” Flint says, rubbing his face with both hands. “We have to take her to the authorities, or an orphanage or...something,” he says, clearly at a loss. 

“I'm not giving her to strangers,” Silver says with calm certainty. He's already made up his mind; he's just waiting for Flint to understand that this is the right thing to do. 

“We're strangers!” Flint protests. “You can't seriously be making a case for keeping someone else's baby,” he says, sounding aghast.

“Her mother took everything else with her. Everything!” Silver hisses, trying to keep his voice down so he won't startle the baby. “Every last hairpin, every gown and stocking and earring. All she left was the girl. She meant to leave her here, James. With me. With _us_.”

“We can't be parents,” Flint says quietly. “You have to understand that we--”

“We what?” Silver challenges him. “We would be worse for her than an angry, neglectful mother who didn't want her in the first place? Worse than a nonexistent father? Worse than no parents at all, growing up in a dismal orphanage or alone on the street? You can't really believe that,” he says. “I'm keeping her, James. If you don't care to live with the terrible burden of a loving partner and a darling baby girl, you're free to leave whenever the mood strikes,” he says. He gets up from the bed and stalks irritably down the hall to the kitchen with Baby (he's starting to think of her that way, as though it's her given name) on his hip, tucked up under his right arm.

They don't really speak to each other for three full days after that. Silver takes care of Baby on his own, while Flint stalks around and scowls and mutters. 

But he doesn't leave. 

When at last they do speak again, it's late and Silver is getting the girl ready for bed, chatting away to her as is his wont. “Come now, Baby,” he coos, wrapping her in a blanket and smiling down at her as he settles her gently into her makeshift crib in their room. Someday soon he'll have to get her a bed that's not a box.

Flint looks up from where he's sitting in bed, rereading Cervantes. “You can't just keep calling her that.”

“What, Baby?” Silver asks as he pulls his shirt off over his head and joins Flint in their bed. “It's what she is, is it not?” he asks, trying not to feel overly giddy that he and Flint are talking.

“Yeah, b-- well. I was about to say that I don't call you Pain In My Arse or Bloody Idiot or Unfathomable Nuisance, but I do,” Flint says, closing his book softly and studying Silver with obvious affection. “However, point is she won't be a baby someday, and she'll need a real name. Since neither you nor I ever thought to ask her mother what she called her, I suppose it falls to us to choose a new one.”

Silver eyes the book in Flint's lap. “Dulcinea.”

Flint snorts. “Ridiculous. No,” he says.

“Araminta?” Silver suggests, folding his arms behind his head and turning slightly to watch Baby's chest rising and falling. She's already deep asleep, bless her. 

“Are we naming a child or a long-haired cat? Christ, John. She'll be a grown woman one day and she'll have to live with whatever we name her,” Flint says.

“Ophelia. Desdemona,” Silver murmurs, wanting a name for his - their - daughter that evokes a certain feeling, that carries a decent amount of weight.

“Far too tragic, both of them,” Flint says, a frown creasing his forehead. 

“Scheherazade?” Silver asks, grinning, just to hear Flint groan at him in frustration.

He does. “Go to sleep. Don't suggest any more names until you've had a few hours’ sleep at least, I think you're delirious,” Flint mutters, rolling over and putting his back to Silver, who laughs.

He falls asleep soon after and wakes a few hours later to the pitter-pat of rain on the windows and Baby's fussy snuffling. He rises from the bed and gathers Baby in his arms, managing to pace the length of the bedroom with both crutch and infant, his loping stride slowly lulling his daughter back to sleep.

He sings to her softly as he paces. “Dance to your daddy, my little lassie. Dance to your daddy, my little lamb. Thou shalt have a fish and thou shalt have a fin, thou shalt have a haddock when the boat comes in,” he sings, and by the time he reaches the last line, she's asleep again. He dares to kiss her forehead, as light as he can so he won't wake her, then tucks her into the box and eases back into bed next to Flint. He can tell he's awake, without looking.

“Hope,” he whispers to him, reaching for his hand in the darkness.

Flint takes it, squeezes. “Her name?”

“Yes,” Silver says, swallowing past a sudden lump in his throat. 

“Finally, a decent suggestion,” Flint murmurs. He leans in and Silver feels his lips, warm and soft, press to his cheek. “Hope, then.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [these three remain [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13223856) by [ponytailflint (inkgeek)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkgeek/pseuds/ponytailflint)




End file.
